Overlooked in the appeal of a telegenic actor spouting provocative dialogue and the pleasure of being immersed in the dense fabric of a great story is the fact that, behind the scenes, there's a person or two of less wattage who made it all happen. Unless a show becomes popular enough that its creators become noteworthy - like Aaron Sorkin, David Chase, J.J. Abrams or David Simon - most will be known only to people in the industry.

But at the Television Critics Association press tour in July, these creative types take center stage. They are the executive producers, writers and show runners who make your favorite series stay on track. They keep it real, or funny or intriguing - they're the architects of the characters and story lines that make hit series so compelling.

As we head into another fall season, here are some quotes from a variety of series creators about their shows, the people in them and the changes ahead:

Matthew Weiner, creator of "Mad Men," on why he set the starting point of Season 2 in 1962, when Season 1 was set in 1960: "Well, there are two things. One is in the life of the series, if it continues, I would like to cover this period of people's lives, and that's a five-year plan, and not a 10-year plan. The other thing is - to step away, when I thought about the last episode of last season, I thought, 'Well, I can continue from that point. We can just do what we do, which is just go to the next month,' because pretty much each episode is a month. Some of them happen close together. But I kind of thought, 'Why don't we just go ahead, and I can start the story fresh, and at the same time there will be all these events that happened in between that will provide an additional storytelling energy?' And you know, you've heard me say that I don't think people change or whatever - the world was definitely in the process of changing, and this gave us a chance to sort of accentuate that. When you watch the first episode of this year, you will immediately look back at last season and think that, as grimy and gritty as a lot of last season was, they do seem more innocent."

Alan Ball, creator of "Six Feet Under," on whether his new vampire series, "True Blood," can be seen as a metaphor for gay people in society because the vampires in the show are trying to fit into society: "Well, that was certainly in the books. All of that is in the books. I really don't look at the vampires as a metaphor for gays in a very specific way. I mean, for me, part of the joy of this whole series is that it's about vampires, and so we don't have to be that serious about it. However, they totally work as a metaphor for gays, for people of color, in previous times in America, for anybody who is misunderstood and feared and hated for being different. I think, because of the cultural climate that we exist in today, it seems like, oh, well, they are a metaphor for gays because gay marriage and gay rights and that kind of thing. But I think it's a bigger metaphor, and at the same time, it's also not a metaphor at all. It's vampires."

Steven Bochco, executive producer of "Raising the Bar" on TNT, on how he got back into the business of making a legal drama: "Well, (David) Feige actually located me through a mutual friend. This has got to be two years ago. And he had just published a book called "Indefensible" and wanted to get it to me because there had been some interest in it from the television community. So I happily read it, and I thought it was wonderful, and the book really chronicles his 12 to 15 years as a public defender in the Bronx. And I said I didn't want to do a series about a public defender. We had done 'Philly,' you know, with Kim Delaney, which I thought was a terrific show, but I didn't feel that audiences really identify particularly with attorneys who represent scumbags, by and large. So I said, 'Great book. Thank you very much and goodbye.' And next thing I know, I get this 10-foot-long e-mail from this guy with an impassioned defense of that world and why it's a worthy world. And I said to Dayna, my wife, I said, 'You know, this man is so passionate about what he does and what he believes in, we should be in business with passionate people because that's what we do.' "

Bochco on calling Feige and telling him the only way he'd get involved: "I called David and I said, 'You know, if you want to start with a blank page and really do a show about a dysfunctional criminal justice system where the point of view isn't skewed just toward public defenders but to prosecutors and judges as well, that's something I'd be very interested in doing.' And he said, 'I'd like that, sure. Let's do that.' And I said, 'Well, OK, because I've just sold it.' "

J.J. Abrams ("Lost," "Alias," etc.), who has also directed feature films ("Mission: Impossible III" and the forthcoming "Star Trek"), on why he came back to do a TV series, "Fringe," for Fox: "It's a funny question to me because I love it. I feel so lucky to get to do it. The draw to do TV is simply the opportunity to do it. I just feel like, for this moment that we can, we would be crazy not to. It's such an amazing medium. It's such an interesting process. Even now, as the episodes are being filmed, there's this really weird thing when you're lucky enough to get a pilot done and you've lived with that for a little while, and then a lot of talk about getting to do the shows, and then you start to see the characters again, it's just a bizarre thing. It's this organic, ongoing thing, and when you have actors as good as we have and you've got a story that I'm really excited that we're telling over a long term, and also episode to episode, to me it's a thrill."

Shawn Ryan, creator of "The Shield," which just started its final season, on how he mapped out the series arc: "There was no original plan. I mean, you know, I wrote this as a spec script and never thought it would get made, and when it did get made and I had to worry about what would Season 1 be, I worried about Season 1. You know, I was in the back listening a little bit to the panel on 'Sons of Anarchy' because Kurt Sutter worked for us on all seven seasons of the show. I just wanted to see what he was doing on the new show, and he's the guy who certainly has a plan, and he always does a lot of thinking. I've always been a much more instinctual writer. Things either feel right to me or they don't, but I'm not someone like David Milch ("Deadwood," "NYPD Blue"), who will give you a long treatise on why certain decisions were made and why others weren't. What I can say is that the other writers, who I have to give a ton of credit to, who aren't sitting up here but who are hugely instrumental in the success of the show - the writers and I would sit down at the beginning of every year, and we would have a plan for every season. Then, around Season 4 or 5, I started thinking about how I wanted to end the show, and I had some vague notions. Our show is very, very collaborative. It's not an auteur system. It's a very collaborative show, between the writers, between the actors and between the directors and our producers and the network and the studio. So we came up with a plan for this final season that we thought worked really well. Then around Episode 4 or 5, we came up with a better idea. So we changed the plan. And that's always been the way that this show has worked best."

Marc Cherry, creator of "Desperate Housewives," on how he came up with the idea of shifting the series five years ahead (which is where it will pick up this season): "I was so impressed with the bold stroke that Damon (Lindelof) and Carlton (Cuse) had done with doing the flash forward in "Lost" the previous season finale, and I was kind of looking for something for my show, and also I felt that the soap had really started to build up, and I kind of wanted to pare down to where everyone's problems were small but very relatable. And I thought, 'How am I going to do that?' And I thought, 'Oh. Let's just go forward in time. Let me change everyone's lives completely.' I was originally going to do an eight-year jump, but then when someone explained to me how the actresses would react to the idea that they were eight years older, I thought maybe five. Maybe I could get away with five."